I would like to respond to Dr. Stephen Morris’ latest missive, published in the New Hyde Park Herald on Friday, March 21, 2014.
In that letter, Dr. Morris put forth what I would describe as a, “You’d like us if you got to know us,” argument in favor of the Tea Party movement.
In his letter, Dr. Morris argued that liberals only dislike the Tea Party because they’ve been lied to by non-conservative media, and that if they attended a Tea Party chapter meeting, watched Fox News, listened to conservative radio or heard a speech by Michele Bachmann or Ted Cruz, they’d be instant converts.
I’m here to tell you, Dr. Morris, that your argument is ridiculously out of touch.
As a federal employee, I spent over two weeks last October becoming intimately familiar with the core tenets of the Tea Party movement, and I can tell you without any doubt that I have nothing in common with you or any other Tea Party member and that my views aren’t based on underexposure to the Tea Party.
As my colleagues and I sat home, not knowing when our next paycheck would come, I watched legislators, like Bachmann and Cruz, bloviate endlessly on TV and social media, trying to justify their decision to shut down the government and deny important services, like cancer care, to the American people.
That is, of course, if you consider, “It’s the Democrats’ fault for not agreeing to defund Obamacare,” a justification.
I watched Republican Congressman Randy Neugebauer tell a park ranger at the World War II Memorial – a public employee just trying to do her job in an impossible situation – that she should be ashamed of herself.
I watched Fox News talking heads belittle the crisis and its real impact on the American people by calling it a “government slimdown” and joking that people being turned away from parks and museums would be the only consequence of the shutdown.
While all this was happening, I watched Cruz and his cohorts once again flirt with the idea of forcing a default on the public debt, even if it meant plunging the nation into another major recession or even depression.
I don’t support the Tea Party movement because your political and economic views are diametrically opposed to my own, not because I’m a naïve lefty who has been tricked or shamed into it.
But, if you want to tell yourself that no one could possibly dislike you if he really got to know you, that’s your decision.
By the way, in response to your praise of owner Steven Blank for allowing you to rant uncensored in his publications each week, you should be aware that most major newspapers edit reader submissions for spelling, grammar, syntax and length.
Because of lack of resources, lack of time or both, Mr. Blank does not. This does you and your cause no favors.
As I indicated in a previous response, your letters are rife with spelling and grammatical errors.
Just this week, you once again misspelled Sarah Palin’s first name, as well as Bachmann’s. You also failed to capitalize the first word in several sentences, made liberal use (no pun intended) of multiple question marks and exclamation points and confused the word “verses” with “versus.”
Think about it this way.
If you were reading an article written by someone with an opposing viewpoint, and he could barely string two words together (or even spell the name of a leader of his political movement), would you be swayed by his argument?
I would strongly recommend that the next time you attend one of these hallowed Tea Party chapter meetings you bragged about in your letter, you ask around and try to find someone who has some kind of background in writing. A high school English teacher or a writer for a local paper would do.
Either ask that person to give your next article a look over before you send it in or ask that person to take over your letter-writing duties. You’ll thank me.
Matthew Zeidman
New Hyde Park
